


Objects That Exist

by frangipani_flowers



Category: Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: Epistolary, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani_flowers/pseuds/frangipani_flowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One last letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects That Exist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DracoJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoJ/gifts).



> This is my Yuletide 2015 gift for DracoJ. I've never written for this fandom before, and I hope I managed to get Alex's voice right! Happy Yuletide, and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Unbeta'ed; any faults are my own, and I offer my apologies.

4 March, 1998

Dear Jonathan,

      It seems to me that I have made many promises to you and that I am failing to keep many of them in one piece. Truthfully I am not an unconflicted person when I wonder if I should have gripped it and been resolute in no longer scribing to you. I do it because there is something that I think is premium value and you must be aware of it, as it is a conclusion and all things require them. As you know Father is not here but he is still here because he is written on things, like Yankel and the lipstick notes on the walls. ((I hope, Jonathan, that you do not mind me speaking of your writing like this but I cannot help but feel that while it is very full of not-truths it also says many things that are correct and majestic. If you are wrathful then you may neglect what you do not like.)) In consequence myself and Little Igor and mother are transferring to Odessa, where the sand is soft and the water like a mouth. It is not where Grandfather was from after all for we now know from where Grandfather originated but it is a blameless place. I am moving my studies with us but I will be toiling elsewhere additionally and I will find something to perform when I am completed. Things will be different there as I feel they must be and I am anticipatory.

      It would be a not-truth to say that I am in all ways relaxed to be leaving due to my feeling that we will be going from Grandfather. Accounting to his letter to you he would not mind (in truth feel he would be even happier that we should depart him) and additionally I think he would already be wrathful that I am scribing to you and speaking of him at all now he is not here. I hope my reason would appease him however, and that it appeases you also if you are also wrathful. I am aware he thought we needed to abscond from the past but I do not think I am afraid for this as Grandfather was. In truth, Jonathan, I think that for Grandfather it was a different thing, or that he thought it was different, and so it was. The past is not hungry. It only is. But we feel it is and so we feed it and it grows in volume until we have nothing left and it is everything and there is no space for what we can be. And at once it is additionally so very important because it is who we are. It is a difficult thought to hold in my head all at once because it is so many different things, yet this number of things are all true. I wonder if we can all see these things the same or if they are different again, but I do not ask you Jonathan because an unanswered question can be, as we know, a sad thing and it would not I think be right to make more. But I also wonder if you agree or if you would be displeased with my thoughts about this.

      I wish to be very transparent that I did break my promise, Jonathan, but that it is not a permanent thing. When we leave this place I shall cast away your location and as I am not a person who remembers things (except for the song you desired me to copy out and the stars above the field that was Trachimbrod (and also your face when you saw that you had assassinated Sammy Davis Junior Junior by chance with your peanuts) and plentiferous other things) I shall no longer be able to write to you. Is this not satisfactory? If you do not want to address me I will comprehend this (but if you do I shall tell you our destination so that it will be possible.) Is this plan not a most astute one?

      Little Igor is still not speaking to me, but he witnessed my eyes yesterday and did not at once observe something else. This is not a large thing but it made me understand that Grandfather was maybe right and that it may be one day things will be comprehensive for him. This made me both happy and not happy concurrently. To know he was sorrowful but that he would not be one day is both melancholy and pleasing. It seems like a strange thing that I might be so happy for this but I see now that I would do very many greater things for Little Igor and having his inattention to me is a very small one. Even if we are not to go to America, as I know we shall not, he must have a most premium life and be a most premium person, as indeed he already is.

      I am hoping that you will persist in reading this – but we have always had to read what the other transmitted, have we not? This is not because we owed it, or as if it was an arrangement between us. It is because it could never have been any other way. We must find our way from here. I have many hopes some of which I cannot grant myself to think of, but one of them is that I should not have too many hopes. I hope that Grandfather absolves me I hope that you will absolve me (in truth, I hope for many absolvings) I hope that I will locate toil to perform I hope that your writings will be successful I hope Grandfather’s hope that we shall have peace I hope that Odessa is as Grandfather told us, that it is a good place to make a family, and that Little Igor may sometime become in love and contentment. I hope that we shall all one time be in contentment.

                                                                                                             Finally,  
                                                                                                                      Alex


End file.
